Free Series - Sound Design with Field Recordings

[Nick the Zombie]

Nick, see what you can do with these two babies if you need some more source material...

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 80&start=0

These are beautiful samples. If it's cool with you (I'm assuming you gave me the go-ahead in your last message), I might use these for a future free video with full credit given to you, of course!

- Nick

[TroyP]

Cool stuff, but do we really need any certain kind of sound to do this? I mean, if you can do all that with a finger rubbed on a mic, I could probably spend the rest of my life experimenting/mangling sounds that are free and readily available.

Or am I missing something?

[Nick the Zombie]

Cool stuff, but do we really need any certain kind of sound to do this? I mean, if you can do all that with a finger rubbed on a mic, I could probably spend the rest of my life experimenting/mangling sounds that are free and readily available.

Or am I missing something?

Nope, you're not missing anything! The whole point of this is that you can do a hell of a lot with the sounds that occur all around you, and my videos convey techniques for doing so. The amount of interesting timbres that are waiting to be recorded and turned into your own sounds is vast. The message of the videos is definitely NOT that you need a particular field recording to make a particular sound. The message is that since the timbres of field recordings (and found sounds in general) are so varied, you can easily make sounds that are absolutely unique to you. I'm just giving examples, but the techniques themselves are what I hope people are taking away from the tutorials.

It's that whole "Give a man a fish, and he can eat a meal. Teach a man to fish, and he can eat for a lifetime" type of thing

[Grappadura]

Hey Nick, thx for your great videos, its been very inspiring once again. Say, do you know a solution for the problem that there is no time stretching in sampler? How do you see that issue?

[TroyP]

Nope, you're not missing anything! The whole point of this is that you can do a hell of a lot with the sounds that occur all around you, and my videos convey techniques for doing so...

OK, good. I do appreciate what you're sharing and am learning lots from it. Hope I didn't come across wrong. It's really kinda cool that you don't need a particular sound.

[Nick the Zombie]

@Grappadura: Unfortunately, I have no useful insight into this issue. I, like many others, really hope they implement this in future versions of the instruments.

@TroyP: You didn't come across in a negative way at all, it was a good question. Glad I could clarify it for you!

[contakt321]

Hey Nick, thx for your great videos, its been very inspiring once again. Say, do you know a solution for the problem that there is no time stretching in sampler? How do you see that issue?

would you mind posting in this thread? http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=110573

I agree, this could make Live even more powerful.

[UKRuss]

Nick, see what you can do with these two babies if you need some more source material...

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 80&start=0

These are beautiful samples. If it's cool with you (I'm assuming you gave me the go-ahead in your last message), I might use these for a future free video with full credit given to you, of course!

- Nick

All yours man, will be great to hear what you do with them.

[serge_a_storms]

pretty cool nick!

thanks for sharing man..

Is it me or is there something 'Spring like' about the field recording/found sound topics floating about on the forum at the moment?

[squeakycheeker]

hi nick - any thoughts on reducing 'handling noise' - i'm using a tascam dr-1 which is otherwise great...

[Nick the Zombie]

hi nick - any thoughts on reducing 'handling noise' - i'm using a tascam dr-1 which is otherwise great...

Hi squeakycheeker,

Do the DR-1 use traditional hard drive or something like a CF card for its storage? That's a HUGE consideration for me when picking out a field recorder. I had a Minidisc player that I used as a field recorder for a long time, and it did an excellent job except for the awful noise that the little hard drive would imprint on some of my recordings. This isn't really "handling" noise, but it's something that came to mind and I thought I should mention it.

To reduce the noise created from carrying the device around, the only good answer I've come across is also kind of limiting: Stay still while capturing sounds that you really want to turn out well. I usually just find the environment I want to record and then put the recorder on a table or the sidewalk next to me while it does its thing. I've actually had pretty good luck with my R-09 in terms of noise created while walking around, something I definitely couldn't say for the old MD recorder.

Can you describe the noise that you are experiencing a bit more?

- Nick

[Nick the Zombie]

By the way, the second installment is now live here: http://nickstutorials.com/blog/2009/03/ ... ecordings/. Like last time, you can download the Live project which contains the instruments and individual sounds, and it's all royalty-free, etc.

Hope you guys enjoy it,

- Nick

[squeakycheeker]

hi nick - it's kind of a rustling scraping noise, i guess just my hands on the casing as i'm moving around - wind noise is a problem too but one of those fluffy sock things should sort that out. dr-1 uses an sd memory card so no hard drive noise to worry about - cheers chris.

[stutter]

nice videos, thankyou.
I remember Neb and other's praise for your videos now, and having watched these I see where they're coming from

[Nick the Zombie]

hi nick - it's kind of a rustling scraping noise, i guess just my hands on the casing as i'm moving around - wind noise is a problem too but one of those fluffy sock things should sort that out. dr-1 uses an sd memory card so no hard drive noise to worry about - cheers chris.

Yep, I've had this with the R-09 as well, especially when I set the mic input to high sensitivity. With practice, I'm getting better at keeping the device very still in my hand while recording, and of course just setting it down on a solid surface helps a lot, too!